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City Master Plan Update

Nearly 15 years have passed since Middletown adopted its last Master Plan and a lot has changed for the City since 2005. The City achieved many of the objectives and strategies described in the 2005 Plan, and now it’s time to re-evaluate the future direction.

A Master Plan is intended to be a blueprint that will guide the development of the City and will address a number of key topics including housing, development, and revitalization. The updated Master Plan will be a graphically-rich, streamlined document that will used for marketing purposes, grant writing, as well as a tool for directing future development.

Over the last two years, the City has worked with community groups such as Middletown Moving Forward and Downtown Middletown, Inc. to host visioning meetings to determine the needs and wants of residents and stakeholders for the City’s future. The City adopted the final community visioning document in 2017 for inclusion in the new overall Master Plan.

The City adopted its new zoning code this month, which will again provide best practices currently being utilized in Ohio for city-wide development.

In 2017, the City adopted the Downtown Middletown Strategic Plan and completed a city-wide Housing Study that determined the strengths and weaknesses in Middletown’s housing stock.

In 2018, the City will be completing a new Airport Master Plan, which will lay out future development of the 50+ acres available on the airport property.

2018 will start our review of the City park system and the future return of Recreation to the city.

All of these components will serve as the framework and the majority of the focus of the work will be on overall city land use and special planning areas.

As each of the above areas are defined, one of the last pieces will be a transportation study to determine the best way to move people as pedestrians, bicyclers, and by automobile and to determine the best uses for public transit given the other priorities in the plan.

The City chose the consulting firm McBride Dale Clarion to lead the work for the Master Plan update. They were chosen based on their previous performance on work completed for the City. McBride Dale Clarion is a consulting firm based out of Cincinnati, Ohio that focuses on comprehensive and land use planning, zoning codes and development services.

McBride Dale Clarion’s Master Plan update phases:

Project Understanding and Initiation

Analysis and Assessment

Land Use Framework

Plan Development

Plan Review and Adoption

As a part of the planning process, the City of Middletown has formed a twelve member volunteer Advisory Committee for the Master Plan. The overall role of the members of the Advisory Committee will be to assist with the planning process by working with city staff and consultants by being the sound board and review body for the Master Plan. Members that were nominated to serve on the committee have a wide range of expertise, and most importantly, have pride in Middletown.

Advisory Committee members include representatives from:

City Council

Planning Commission

Middletown City Schools

Cincinnati State

Miami University

AK Steel

Atrium Medical

Chamber of Commerce

Real Estate

Other Business Stakeholders and Expertise

The Master Plan Advisory Committee will meet monthly starting in late February and will work with City staff and consultants over the next 10 months. The goal is to adopt the Master Plan in December 2018.

If you have any questions regarding the Middletown Master Plan Update process, please contact Ashley Combs, City Planner, at 513-425-7922 or ashleyc@cityofmiddletown.org.